


cookie monster

by amaelamin



Series: leohyuk14 [1]
Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Cheese, First Meetings, Fluff, M/M, Stress Baking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 09:58:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16385807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaelamin/pseuds/amaelamin
Summary: this is the first prompt for the leohyuk fortnight where i post 7 prompts over 14 days! it's really been a long time since i attempted prompts or wrote anything at all so this one to start off is a very simple fluffy piece.prompt: You’re baking cookies in the communal dorm kitchen at 3am and i’m angry but also really hungry (college au)





	cookie monster

Taekwoon is used to not sleeping.

He’s a college student - two months into his freshman year sleep fast became a mythical creature that only randomly and abruptly visited. Given that he lives on campus in a residence surrounded by an extremely motley mess of similarly struggling college students and is always, always followed by the fear of the dreaded monster called If You Don’t Hand In This Assignment On Time You’re Failing Your Midterms and also known as Holy Shit There’s A Test Tomorrow Why Didn’t Anyone Remind Me, Taekwoon survives on coffee more often than not. It’s a prestigious college, and a competitive one; he supposes he can sleep after graduation. Maybe.

Therefore, it isn’t a surprise that he’s awake at three a.m. on a Wednesday night. It is not a situation he’s unfamiliar with. He has his laptop open in front of him, his eyes bloodshot and squinting, half-full mug of gone-cold coffee placed strategically for easy access, and he’s just realised that he’s written the same bunch of notes twice due to what sounds like drilling coming from the dorm kitchen across the hallway.

That, and singing.

He checks his laptop’s clock again. 3:02am. Try to attain nirvana and continue with his music composition or go out and give the kitchen nuisance a piece of his mind?

He’s almost resolved to try to ignore the noise and go back to work when the person in the kitchen - who is it? Who is this amazing menace sent to make his life more difficult than it already is? - drops something that sounds like every metal bowl in existence by the unholy clanging it makes.

Taekwoon stands up, and very luckily remembers to look down at himself to make sure he’s wearing something fit to be seen in public with, even if it is just to confront kitchen demons with at three a.m. in the morning. He grabs his cup of coffee like a security blanket and starts for the door. This will take five minutes, tops. Ten if the person tries to negotiate terms of cessation. He should be back here and typing in peace by 3:20 at the very most.

It’s a short trip to the kitchen, and when he throws open the door and finds the source of the drilling and the singing - it isn’t actual drilling, but the sound of an electric handmixer in a bowl whisking - trilling happily away as the boy stares intently into his bowl of what looks like eggs and sugar. There’s a pack of flour on the kitchen counter next to the oven, and a smaller bowl of something, as well as a large metal bowl that Taekwoon decides must have been the thing that had fallen just now. Taekwoon glares.

The boy looks up, and jerks involuntarily in shock. The handmixer scrapes against the side of the bowl with the same effect as fingernails across a chalkboard and Taekwoon interrupts his glare to cringe intensely.

“Turn it off!”

The kid fumbles for the on/off switch and looks back at Taekwoon with the same wide-eyed look of shock, and belatedly Taekwoon realises that even though he may be wearing clothes appropriate to be seen by other humans in that doesn’t mean the rest of him is suitable for human consumption. His eyes, already sporting huge dark circles, must also be puffy and red from staying up the whole night and he doesn’t know what state his hair is in; coupled with his death stare and tight grip on his coffee mug which incidentally says in bright red letters “IF I HAVEN’T HAD MY COFFEE YET, FUCK OFF” (a joke gift from his friend Wonsik who couldn’t stop laughing at the fact that someone had made a coffee mug precisely with Taekwoon in mind) Taekwoon standing glowering in the doorway must look like an avenging angel from hell. Well, good.

“Don’t you know what time it is?” Taekwoon demands, shushing the voice at the back of his mind that says you weren’t even sleeping anyway.

“Oh, I’m sorry - is it about that big noise just now? I dropped the bowl - I’m really sorry. Won’t happen again!” The boy tries to smile at him, and Taekwoon counters it by upping his glare a notch.

“I’m right next to the kitchen. I can hear everything you’re doing in here. Why can’t you wait until a normal time to make your dumb cake?”

“It’s cookies, actually,” the boy mumbles, drawing a hand across his face. “I don’t know why but when I’m stressed out baking helps. And I don’t know how to make anything other than this one type of cookies,” he laughs a little, and looks up at Taekwoon. “You look like you’re stressed out, too.”

Taekwoon shrugs, wary of being drawn into conversation with this wildcard baker.

“Why were you awake?” The kid raised his chin at Taekwoon’s mug. “You look like you’ve been up all night.”

“Term project,” Taekwoon mutters, despite himself. “If I don’t start early I go crazy in the final week and-” Taekwoon’s eyes follow the boy’s finger as he dips it into the smaller bowl sitting near him and when it comes out coated in chocolate and brings it to his mouth, his brain goes slack. _CHOCOLATE_.

“...Do you want some?” The boy, watching Taekwoon carefully, puts another scoop into his mouth with the air of hypnotising a wild animal.

Dammit, Taekwoon thinks. Did he eat dinner? Or lunch? His stomach’s entire attention is now on the fact that the boy has chocolate, as well as the means to make chocolate _cookies_ , and nothing else in the world will satisfy his sudden need for something sweet.

Term project. Cookies. Term project. Cookies.

“You can have half the cookies,” the boy smiles, and Taekwoon groans inwardly. He is a weak, weak man. This kid is seducing him with chocolate baked goods, sensing where to strike within minutes of meeting him to get himself off the hook - Taekwoon is somewhat impressed, though he supposes his jaw going slack at the realisation that chocolate was within his reach might have given the whole game away.

“I’m Han Sanghyuk,” he holds out his clean hand. “You’re probably a senior. Right?”

“Jung Taekwoon. How did you know?” Taekwoon says, shaking Sanghyuk’s hand briefly with his free one and wondering at how soft it is. Half his brain is still focused on the chocolate.

“Seniors all tend to look as near death as you do,” Sanghyuk grins. Taekwoon narrows his eyes, the kid’s deeply cheeky smile only just tipping the remark over into joking rather than rude. “I’m a freshman. Can I call you hyung? Since we’re about to share cookies and all. It’s a bonding experience.”

Taekwoon blinks. “I don’t even know if you can make good cookies.”

Sanghyuk draws himself up proudly. “I may not be able to bake anything else, or cook anything else, but they’re good, hyung. I promise. If they aren’t I’ll write your term paper for you.”

Taekwoon notes the use of _hyung_ even though he hadn’t given permission, as well as the careless promise to do what Sanghyuk assumes is his term paper. In this liminal kitchen space where reality is apparently skewed and bold freshmen dare to speak to hallowed seniors without the utmost reverence and respect an important decision must be made. Does he allow this kid - this child - to continue to behave in this frivolous manner? Or does he put his foot down and show the kid who’s boss?

“We can put extra chocolate in, hyung,” Sanghyuk tells him in a conspiratorial manner. “I have more.”

Taekwoon puts down his mug and goes to the sink to wash his hands, all decisions firmly made. “What should I do?”

Sanghyuk gives him a huge smile and produces the extra chocolate for Taekwoon to slowly melt over a water bath as he goes back to beating his eggs and sugar. In the time it takes for the eggs and sugar to be creamed properly Taekwoon learns that Sanghyuk is intending to major in music composition - like him - and is going to join the music society - like him - and unlike him, was from one of the best arts high schools in Seoul. He stirs his chocolate quietly as he listens to Sanghyuk talk about how excited he is and how he can’t wait to be done with his freshman courses so he can start taking the ‘real stuff’, as he put it, and Taekwoon thinks about how he used to be in his first year. Was he this bright-eyed and passionate?

“You said you were stressed, though,” Taekwoon points out.

“Oh yeah, no, I’ve got a performance tomorrow for my dance module that I’m a bit nervous about,” Sanghyuk scrunches up his face cutely. “I’m just worried about doing a good job. I prepared for it so much. I mean, I had a lot of fun practising for it so it’ll be a shame if something goes wrong and I don’t get to show what I prepared.”

“Fun,” Taekwoon repeats in a sigh, feeling wistful. He dips a finger into the cooling chocolate, all melted now, and tastes it. The flavour of it blooms beautifully in his mouth, and he wonders if bakers or cooks ever get tired of the things they make. Do dessert chefs stop enjoying chocolate? Do people who work in chocolate factories stop thinking it smells wonderful?

“What’s your term paper about, hyung?” Sanghyuk asks, not having noticed Taekwoon being lost in thought.

“It’s not a paper,” Taekwoon says. “In your last year you’ll have to compose music. That’s your final project.”

Sanghyuk’s whole face lights up. “You mean you’re writing a song?”

“Yeah,” Taekwoon shrugs. He finds he’s been doing that a lot when people ask him about his music. “I’ve done a few so I just need to decide-”

“Hyung, that is so cool. That is what I want to be able to do. I mean, that’s why I’m in this major. Right now - I’m nowhere near being able to write and produce a whole song. And you say you’ve written more than one?”

“They’re not that good. I mean, it’s not that hard. Anybody can do this-”

“Hyung!” Sanghyuk scolds sharply, holding up his spatula. “Don’t you think composing is amazing? Finding the right words and right melody and right rhythm as well as coming up with something completely new that has never been heard before even though there’s literally hundreds of years of songwriting behind us?”

Taekwoon opens and closes his mouth.

“So of course your songs are amazing,” Sanghyuk nudges his shoulder earnestly. “You created something new. You wrote a song.”

“Do you want to listen to them?” Taekwoon finds himself blurting out in a flurry. “You don’t have to, I mean, I’m just - maybe a second opinion would help-”

“Of course! You go get your laptop. I’ll mix the rest of this and get it into the oven,” Sanghyuk grabs Taekwoon’s chocolate bowl. Taekwoon is halfway to the door when Sanghyuk picks up his handmixer and after dumping the flour and chocolate into his large mixing bowl, turns it on, and is promptly covered in a cloud of flour. The small ‘oh’ he lets out makes Taekwoon turn around and stare at how fast Sanghyuk managed to go from unfloured to definitely floured.

“Probably should have used a spoon to mix it all in instead,” he says faintly, blinking down at himself.

Taekwoon laughs - a surprise laugh that bubbles up through his chest, and takes the bowl from a white-drenched Sanghyuk. “You’re a disaster. Go clean up. I’ll do this.”

“I’ll be right back,” Sanghyuk tells him urgently. “My room is just a few doors away. Don’t forget about getting your music, hyung.”

Taekwoon mixes the batter and gets it evenly portioned and into the oven on the baking sheet Sanghyuk had prepared while trying to swallow down the nerve-wracking feeling of having someone else listen to his music, and when Sanghyuk returns de-floured Taekwoon is waiting for him with an anxious look on his face.

“Look, please don’t expect too much-”

Sanghyuk shushes him imperiously and hops up onto the countertop, holding his hands out for Taekwoon’s laptop. Taekwoon gets up onto the kitchen counter in a more dignified manner and humbly gives Sanghyuk one half of his earbuds. Taking a deep breath, he plays the first song.

Sanghyuk listens seriously for the three-minute duration of the rough draft of the song, and then bursts into a stream of things to say. Taekwoon listens, taken aback, as Sanghyuk talks about what he liked and disliked and asks questions wanting to understand Taekwoon’s decisions why he chose to sing himself for his song and why he chose a piano accompaniment and so on and so forth, and by the time Taekwoon has finished answering all his questions and discussing certain facets to the song he hadn’t even realised were there he finds himself feeling a tinge of life once more the way he used to when he thought of his music. _His_ music.

“I’ve been writing songs forever,” he says softly, not able to look at Sanghyuk because Sanghyuk right now feels too much like a mirror and he also doesn’t want to confront why he’s spilling his guts like this to a stranger. “The first time I realised I was starting to hate it was when I had to do it for class. I stopped enjoying writing music the moment it became something I had to do to pass my modules and I think I’ve - I think I’ve forgotten what it was I liked about it.”

“I don’t know if this helps,” Sanghyuk says after a silence, kicking his legs lightly against the counter side. “But my appa always said that if you’re doing something important, imagine you’re doing it for someone you love. Would you give that song to someone you love?”

“No,” Taekwoon snorts.

“But you could. With some work.”

Taekwoon nods slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. With some work.” He sneaks a glance up at Sanghyuk, and when Sanghyuk catches Taekwoon’s eye he grins.

“And maybe the person you love could just be yourself. Do it as a gift to yourself, so you can be proud of what you have accomplished. Now let me listen to the second song.”

Taekwoon clicks on it, grateful and warm, and when he looks up again Sanghyuk gives him another encouraging smile. Taekwoon feels like he’s some kind of woolly mammoth that’s been frozen in ice for centuries and due to an unexpectedly hot spell is now starting to thaw out; who’d have thought kitchen menaces making cookies at three in the morning could be just the thing he needed to give himself one more push to not give up his love for composing completely? Taekwoon really looks at Sanghyuk then, watching the smile slowly slip off his face as he grows serious.

“Hyung, listen,” Sanghyuk begins urgently, removing the earbud and taking Taekwoon’s hand. “I know it’s been only about forty-five minutes - maybe an hour - since we met, but. I feel like this is meant to be. I was meant to meet you here tonight. You’re so - I want to get to know you better. Can I? Will you give me your number, hyung? And I think you’re probably very handsome, too, once you’ve had a good sleep-”

Taekwoon blinks, swept up, and then abruptly frowns. “What is that smell?”

“My burning sincerity and passion, hyung.”

“No, I - what? No, I think it’s-”

It is then that they become aware that their cookies are burning.

**

Two days later Taekwoon is - again - late for his morning lecture, and he nearly steps on the little basket that is sitting outside his door as he rushes out of his room. He has to do an ungainly hop sideways to avoid it and nearly crashes into the corridor wall before he can catch his balance. He looks around surreptitiously to see if anyone had caught him doing the impromptu dance before scooping up the little package and finds that it holds nicely-wrapped cookies: chocolate ones.

 _Taekwoon_ _hyung_ ,  
Since I didn’t manage to give you any of mine. (I bought these, don’t worry.) Not sure if you still want to talk to me after the whole baking disaster the other day but if you do.. here’s my number. I’m also in room 806. Still want to listen to your other song. +010 2489-6759  
\- _Sanghyuk_

Just as Taekwoon finishes reading Sanghyuk’s note attached to the basket, a door a few rooms down opens and Sanghyuk himself comes out of it - 806 - and clearly isn’t expecting to see Taekwoon standing outside his own room holding his gift of cookies. He almost ducks back inside before getting a hold of himself and gives Taekwoon a short, embarrassed smile before marching away in the opposite direction. The lifts are next to the kitchen on the other side, which means that Sanghyuk has chosen to walk down eight flights of stairs instead of face Taekwoon. Taekwoon snorts.

Taekwoon weighs the cookies satisfiedly in his hand. The kid really is cute.


End file.
